Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker I Array Microphone

The Voice Tracker I is an eight-element array microphone that steers a single listening beam electronically to whoever is speaking, anywhere in a 360 degree field, and moves it to the next talker in milliseconds. That is the difference from a fixed-beam array: nothing has to be aimed at installation, and nobody has to sit in the right seat. Acoustic Magic has built it since 2002 and it remains the affordable way to cover a lecture hall or a long conference table from one device.

Usable pickup runs to about 30 feet for meeting recording, and 3 to 4 feet for accurate speech recognition. All the processing is inside the microphone, so setup is connecting the 3.5 mm mic-level output or a USB adapter and selecting it as the default input. There is no built-in echo canceller, which suits VoIP platforms that do their own. It runs from the included 6 V wall supply rather than batteries, and the ceiling and wall mount is built into the body. Several units can be combined with 3.5 mm Y-cables or a mixer for larger rooms.